I throw a hand out to catch the corner of the table, steady myself, and rise.
“I can’t do this. Trust me when I say it’s not you.” Her voice breaks. “It’s so not you; it’s me.” She rushes around me to the stairs and stops before taking the first step. “I’m so sorry.”
She runs off.
Ditching the steak on the grill, I dart after her, Rufus on my heels. “Elodie, can we talk?”
“No. You’re too— And I’m—” She spins, and I nearly run into her. I want to push my hands through her hair and kiss thepain in her features away. “I’m a mess. My life is a mess. I tried to get it together, and it’s not there yet. And you’ve—” Another sardonic laugh leaves her. “Anyone would be lucky to have you, but it can’t be me.” Tears glitter in her eyes. “I gave away my luck, and I’m still paying for it.”
She spins and darts around the corner to her car. I’m frozen in place. Her engine fires up, her tires crunch on gravel, and then the noise fades and it’s quiet again. Nothing but birds and frogs chirp around me.
I stab a hand through my hair and look down at myself as if I morphed into that dirty kid right before she ran. Wouldn’t be the first date to ditch me because of how I looked. Rufus gazes up at me, and I give him a shrug. What did I do? Could I have done something different? Do I just walk away from years of infatuation? If I tried to pursue it, would that be stalking?
I don’t know.
The smell of seasoned meat and charcoal drifts across my nose. Shit. The food. I run back, flip the steaks, and take the salad inside. At least it’s covered. Then I plop into the chair Elodie vacated and let out a long, slow exhale. Her glass of water collects condensation next to me.
There has to be something I can do. I’m not too good for her. That’s bullshit.
I could call my brother, but he’d probably assume I did something to piss Elodie off. Only she wasn’t angry. She was... distraught. Crestfallen. It doesn’t make sense.
Dialing the one person I know will be able to tell me exactly what to do, I slump in the chair.
“Cruz,” Mae answers warmly. “How are you?”
I feel like I got kicked in the gut by a horse. “I need some advice.” I spill everything, from my years of trying to get to know Elodie to tonight, when I thought this date would surely lead to a third and then a fourth and more.
While I talk, I rescue the steaks from the grill and let them rest next to me. They’re grilled to perfection and I would’ve loved to show off my char lines to Elodie.
Mae makes a sympathetic sound. “Clearly, she’s had some bad experiences. Perhaps her past is still haunting her, and she feels like it’ll either ruin what you two could’ve built, or that it could just ruin either one of you.”
“What do I do?” I’m not a guy who just gives up, and there’s a pull between me and Elodie that is special. She feels it too, and she wants to give in. An outside source should not be fucking with us.
“Times like this, she needs a friend.”
I don’t want to be her fucking friend. But I’ll take that over nothing. Something’s bothering her, and now that I’ve got glimpses of the brightness inside of her that she hides, I want to help her. “I can do that.”
“Also, Cruz?”
I perk up. Mae’s a sweet woman, but she didn’t survive fostering so many kids to be merely kind. She had to be crafty, subversive, intuitive, and downright fierce at times. I know. I experienced it. “Yeah?”
“Friends need to eat too.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
Elodie
My throat is raw, and my eyes ache from squeezing them shut while I sobbed. It’s a good thing I didn’t go off the road, and my sunglasses hid the worst while I drove through town.
My cousin left me a message that he didn’t see any guy hanging around, so I buzzed right into the bakery and collapsed at my little table.
Cruz was cooking for me. Waiting on me. Asking me about my day and my business. He was also holding back. That guy saw right through my defeated demeanor, but he peppered me with casual questions like he knew I’d shut him out and bolt if he delved in further. Which I did anyway.
I wipe my eyes. The skin around them burns like I sandblasted my face. My nose is stuffy, but I sniffle and toss the tissue.
My stomach has the audacity to rumble. That steak I fled from smelled so damn good. And that pasta salad? I hardly make savory food anymore and he had a whole stockpile just for our date.
I rest my arm across my gut. I can make myself eggs. Tears pop back up in my eyes. No. I’ll remember how I made an omelet for Cruz, and how appreciative he was, and how satisfied I felt watching him eat my cooking. The way the muscles in his jaw clenched while he chewed and how his gaze softened with the first bite. I missed a whole night of that.
